News from OUP UK

To say the Punic Wars (264–146 BC) was a turning point in world history is an understatement. This bloody and protracted conflict pitted two flourishing Mediterranean powers against one another, leaving one an unrivalled giant and the other a literal pile of ash.

DNA is a biological code elegantly composed of only four letters A, C, G and T. From this simplicity comes all the complexity of life on earth. Despite all the tremendous achievements already made, the era of genomics is just starting. We stand on the cusp of sequencing the Earth from genome to ecosystem, from our own guts to our oceans. And we have just the earliest, fuzziest insights into what questions we can use genomics to answer.’

Waterloo was the last battle fought by Napoleon and the one which finally ended his imperial dreams. It involved huge armies and heavy losses on both sides. For those who fought in it – Dutch and Belgians, Prussians and Hanoverians as well as British and French troops – it was a murderous struggle.

The destruction of the Armenians of the Ottoman empire in 1915-16 was a brutal crime that prefigured other genocides in the twentieth century. More than a million were killed and the survivors were scattered across the world. Although a century has passed, the event is still a divisive and contested political issue.

Some would argue that scarcely a day passes without a new assault on our privacy. In the wake of the whistle-blower Edward Snowden's revelations about the extent of surveillance conducted by the security services in the United States, Britain, and elsewhere, concerns about individual privacy have significantly increased. The Internet generates risks, unimagined even twenty years ago, to the security and integrity of information in all its forms.

The 1960s revealed a new and revolutionary idea in geological thought: that the continents drift with respect to one another. After having been dismissed for decades as absurd, the concept gradually became part of geology's basic principles. We now know that the Earth's crust and upper mantle consist of a small number of rigid plates that move, and there are significant boundaries between pairs of plates, usually known as earthquake belts.

What was the true nature of Elizabeth's relationship with her father, Henry VII? How close was she to her half-brother Edward VI? Were relations with her half-sister Mary really as poisonous as is popularly assumed?

Millions of us read the newspaper, catch up on the latest bestselling novels, or research work or school assignments on digital devices. Reading onscreen has many virtues. It can be convenient, save money, and enable people around the globe to access vast amounts of information.

Sophocles stands as one of the greatest dramatists of all time, influencing a vast array of artists and thinkers over the centuries. Disturbing and unrelenting, his tragedies portray what Matthew Arnold referred to as 'the turbid ebb and flow of human misery', allowing the audience to stand on the verge of the abyss and confront the waste and disorder of human existence. The heroic myths reinterpreted in the plays locate them within a world in which the extremes of human emotion in its darkest hours can be freely explored.

The last thirty years have witnessed one of the most fertile periods in the history of children's books: the flowering of imaginative illustration and writing, the Harry Potter phenomenon, the rise of young adult and crossover fiction, and books that tackle extraordinarily difficult subjects. The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature provides an indispensable and fascinating reference guide to the world of children's literature. Its 3,500 entries cover every genre from fairy tales to chapbooks; school stories to science fiction; comics to children's hymns.

(BERGEN, Norway)– Today, The Holberg Prize, the largest annual international prize awarded to outstanding researchers in the arts and humanities, social science, law or theology, named British author, scholar and critic Marina Warner as its 2015 laureate. Warner will receive the financial award of £ 380,000 during a formal ceremony at the University of Bergen (UiB) on June 10.

- A new edition of Woolf's iconic essays, classics of feminist literature, in which she argues passionately for women's intellectual freedom and their role in challenging the drive towards fascism and war

- The edition draws upon the latest discoveries in Woolf scholarship, including rediscovered proofs, records of Woolf's research for Three Guineas, publication of the fan letters received in response to the essays and more

- Introductory notes explore Woolf's engagement with the issues of the day, especially her involvement with suffrage campaigns, anti-fascist organizations, and her anti-imperial politics.

- Includes the original photographs, Woolf's own notes for Three Guineas, a full chronology of Woolf's life, Biographical Preface by Frank Kermode, and an up-to-date bibliography.

For as long as there have been civilizations, there has been the urge to venture outside of them, either in search of other civilizations or in search of novelty. Exploration: A Very Short Introduction surveys this quintessential human impulse, tracing it from pre-history to the present, from east to west around the globe, and from the depths of volcanoes to the expanses of space.

‘Makes for fairly amazing reading … . Wolf has not held anything back. The result is an account that reads a bit like a crime novel.’ Chris Clark, University of Cambridge, and author of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

‘This is the best all-round account of North Korea yet.’ – Times Literary Supplement

‘There is no better road map in English than this wise, anecdotally rich and entertaining book.’ –The Times

‘[Lankov's] book is an important curative to the unhelpful gaggle of pundits who describe nuclear-armed North Korea as "irrational" or an impenetrable "black box”’ – Financial Times

Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding.

A vast subject that includes a strange vocabulary and an apparent mass of facts, human anatomy can at first appear confusing and off-putting. But the basic construction of the human body - the skeleton, the organs of the chest and abdomen, the nervous system, the head and neck with its sensory systems and anatomy for breathing and swallowing - is vital for anyone studying medicine, biology, and health studies. In this Very Short Introduction Leslie Klenerman provides a clear, concise, and accessible introduction to the structure, function, and main systems of the human body, including a number of clear and simple illustrations to explain the key areas.

Peter Hainsworth and David Robey take a different approach to Dante, by examining the main themes and issues that run through all of his work. They look at everything from autobiography to understanding God and the order of the universe. In doing so, Hainsworth and Robey highlight what has made Dante a vital point of reference for modern writers and readers, both inside and outside Italy. They emphasize the distinctive and dynamic interplay in Dante's writing between argument, ideas, and analysis on the one hand, and poetic imagination on the other.

Celebrating the importance of chemistry and demonstrating the vital place chemistry plays in cutting-edge development, this Very Short Introduction was first published in hardback as What is Chemistry? The infrastructure of the modern world.

“We are told in surprisingly frank language of her sexual desires and temptations, and often the Book provides intimate dialogue between Kempe and her husband, notably the discussion between them about chastity and sexual desire over a bottle of beer and a cake, one Midsummer’s Eve…” (From Anthony Bale’s Introduction)

• The full story of Winston Churchill's classic speeches - now told for the first time

• Overturns the national myth of how Churchill's oratory inspired Britain to victory over Nazi Germany, telling the more intriguing story of how his speeches were really received both at home and around the world

• A book that will permanently change the way we think about Churchill's legendary speech-making

• A must-have for anyone with an interest in Churchill or the history of World War II

The story of one of the most significant events in world history, covering both the Protestant and Catholic reform movements and tracing the Reformation from its explosive beginnings through to its profound legacy for the modern world

Psychotherapy and counselling are now widely available to help people overcome emotional and psychological difficulties in their lives. They involve spending time with a professional in an emotionally safe and structured relationship to explore and express the issues that cause distress and difficulty, whether long term self-doubts, relationship problems, or the impact of a trauma or crisis. As a society, we now take this focus on talking through and understanding our identity and relationships for granted, but it is hardly more than a century old.

Ritual is part of what it means to be human. Like sports, music, and drama, ritual defines and enriches culture, putting those who practice it in touch with sources of value and meaning larger than themselves. Ritual is unavoidable, yet it holds a place in modern life that is decidedly ambiguous. What is ritual? What does it do? Is it useful? What are the various kinds of ritual? Is ritual tradition bound and conservative or innovative and transformational?

What does U.S. history look like with women at the centre of the story? From Pocahantas to military women serving in the Iraq war, this survey chronicles the contributions, recognized and unrecognized, that women have made to the American experience. Committed to a multicultural approach to women's history, the narrative opens not with the European settlers who came to America but with the Native American peoples who were already there.

The Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Recession following 2008. Both featured loose credit, precarious real estate and stock market bubbles, suspicious banking practices, an inflexible monetary system, and global imbalances; both had devastating economic consequences. So did 21st-century policy-makers take any lessons from the Depression?

Japan is one of the world’s wealthiest and most technologically advanced nations, and its rapid ascent to global power remains one of the most remarkable stories in modern world history. Yet it has not been an easy path; military catastrophe, political atrophy, and economic upheavals have made regular appearances from the feudal era to the present. Today, Japan is seen as a has-been with a sluggish economy, an aging population, dysfunctional politics, and a business landscape dominated by yesterday’s champions.

How was a collection of Arabian tribes able to overrun territory larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest, in a mere century after the death of Muhammad? The question has perplexed historians for centuries.

Do we love someone for their virtue, their beauty, or their moral or other qualities? Are love's characteristic desires altruistic or selfish? Are there duties of love? What do the sciences - neuroscience, evolutionary and social psychology, and anthropology - tell us about love?

• One of the central works in the history of aesthetics, whose influence extends to literature and art and on philosophers from Kant and Nietzsche and beyond

• Paul Guyer's expert introduction deftly guides the reader through Burke's arguments, explaining the classical tradition that he overturned and analysing the Enquiry's influence on philosophical thinking to the present day.

• Up-to-date bibliography guides the reader through the burgeoning literature on Burke's aesthetics.

Corporate social responsibility has been defined as 'the responsibility of enterprises for their impacts on society'. Is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) just window dressing or is it a contradiction in terms? In this Very Short Introduction, Jeremy Moon shows that CSR holds much more value than it first appears, and shows how it has come of age in recent years. Illustrating the sorts of CSR investments companies make, the ways in which they practice CSR, and the challenges this brings, Moon considers how the principles migrated from their US roots to become a global business phenomenon.

For the British the dramatic opening weeks of the Great War showed the British Army at its professional best: holding the line against impossible odds, and sacrificing itself to stop the last great German offensive of 1914. It is a great tale, and parts of it are even true. But, as Peter Hart reveals, the real story of the opening campaigns of the First World War is far different from the mythology that has come to surround it.

On January 18, 1914, seven male poets gathered to eat a peacock. W. B. Yeats and Ezra Pound, the celebrities of the group, led four lesser-known poets to the Sussex manor house of the man they were honouring, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: the poet, horse-breeder, Arabist, and anti-imperialist married to Byron's only granddaughter.

The squire of Greshamsbury has fallen on hard times, and it is incumbent on his son Frank to make a good marriage. But Frank loves the doctor's niece, Mary Thorne, a girl with no money and mysterious parentage. He faces a terrible dilemma: should he save the estate, or marry the girl he loves? Mary, too, has to battle her feelings, knowing that marrying Frank would ruin his family and fly in the face of his mother's opposition. Her pride is matched by that of her uncle, Dr Thorne, who has to decide whether to reveal a secret that would resolve Frank's difficulty, or to uphold the innate merits of his own family heritage.

“Her covering was torn from her face. It was a face that he knew. In spite of the protruding upper lip and that slobber of blood, it was a face that he knew. She kept on putting her hand up to the gap and screaming.” ‘The Case of Lady Sannox’ - Arthur Conan Doyle

The new eighth edition of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, edited by Elizabeth Knowles, publishes today with an abundance of new quotations. Filled with wit and wisdom, the new collection draws on Oxford's unrivalled dictionary research programme with over 700 new quotes and 200 new authors added to the dictionary, making it the ultimate browser’s paradise.

Before 1893 no woman anywhere in the world had the vote in a national election. A hundred years later almost all countries had enfranchised women, and it was a sign of backwardness not to have done so.

Orin Hargraves has a bee in his bonnet. As a lexicographer, he knows that clichés should be avoided like the plague, yet they keep sticking around. So instead of sitting on the fence, he bit the bullet and decided to get to the bottom of things. After all, it can’t be rocket science, right?

If you lived in 1800, which words existed in English to let you talk about money or the weather? Or 1600? Or at any time in the history of the language? Would Thomas in Downton Abbey have said cheerio in 1912?

“Rosamund Bartlett's riveting new translation of Anna Karenina brings the reader into Tolstoy's many-faceted worlds with an immediacy, majesty and clarity that no other translator of this great novel has ever achieved. Bartlett's Anna Karenina, with its brilliant introductory essay, explanatory notes and bibliography, will be the go-to English version of Tolstoy's – indeed the world's – precious masterpiece.”

• Includes over 110,000 words, based on Oxford Dictionaries' language research

• Essential guidance on spelling, form, and line division

• Endorsed by the Society for Editors and Proofreaders

The New Oxford Spelling Dictionary is the authoritative reference for spelling and word division. Prepared in consultation with professional editors and proofreaders, it is an essential guide for a wide range of people who work with the written word, whether on paper or in electronic form.

The New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors is the essential A to Z guide for everyone who works with words. Drawing on the expertise of the Oxford Dictionaries department, it provides authoritative advice on those words and names which raise questions time after time because of spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, and cultural or historical context.

For over a hundred years, Hart’s Rules has been the authority on style, helping writers and editors prepare copy for publication. The latest edition of this guide has been updated for the twenty-first century using the resources of Oxford Dictionaries and with the advice of publishing experts.

The dramatic story of the crucial two years in which Napoleon lost his empire

Napoleon: The End of Glory tells the story of the dramatic two years that led to Napoleon's abdication in April 1814. Though crucial to European history, they remain strangely neglected, lying between the two much better-known landmarks of the retreat from Moscow and the battle of Waterloo. Yet this short period saw both Napoleon's loss of his European empire, and of his control over France itself. In 1813 the massive battle of Leipzig - the bloodiest in modern history before the first day of the Somme - forced his armies back to the Rhine. The next year, after a brilliant campaign against overwhelming odds, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and exiled to Elba. He regained his throne the following year, for just a hundred days, in a doomed adventure whose defeat at Waterloo was predictable.

Jean Guéhenno’s Diary of the Dark Years 1940-1945 is the book historians love to quote to describe both ordinary daily life and literary life in Paris under Nazi occupation. While it is a sharply observed record of day-to-day life in occupied Paris, this diary is far more than that: it is "a remarkable essay on courage and cowardice." (Caroline Moorehead, Wall Street Journal.) At the time, Guéhenno was a well-known political and cultural critic, left-wing but not Communist, and uncompromisingly anti-fascist. Unlike most French writers during the Occupation, he refused to pen a word for a publishing industry under Nazi control. He expressed his intellectual, moral and emotional resistance in this diary: his shame at the Vichy government's collaboration with Nazi Germany, his contempt for its falsely patriotic reactionary ideology, his outrage at its anti-Semitism and its vilification of the Republic it had abolished, his horror at its increasingly savage repression and his disgust with his fellow intellectuals who kept on blithely writing about art and culture as if the Occupation did not exist-not to mention those who praised their new masters in prose and poetry.

Alexander the Great, arguably the most exciting figure from antiquity, waged war as a Homeric hero, conquering native peoples and territories on a extraordinary scale. From the time he invaded Asia in 334 to his death in 323, he expanded the Macedonian empire from Greece in the west to Asia Minor, the Levant, Egypt, Central Asia, Pakistan and Kashmir in the east. Although many other kings and generals forged empires, Alexander produced one that was without parallel, even if it was short-lived.

Alexander the Great became king of Macedon in 336 BC, when he was only 20 years old, and died at the age of 32, twelve years later. During his reign he conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire, the largest empire that had ever existed, leading his army from Greece to Pakistan, and from the Libyan desert to the steppes of Central Asia. His meteoric career, as leader of an alliance of Greek cities, Pharaoh of Egypt, and King of Persia, had a profound effect on the world he moved through and his story has been told and retold throughout Europe and the East.

As the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne (1665-1714) received the education thought proper for a princess, reading plays and poetry in English and French while learning dancing, singing, acting, drawing, and instrumental music. As an adult, she played the guitar and the harpsichord, danced regularly, and took a connoisseur's interest in all the arts.

In 1934, a Belgian entrepreneur named Paul Otlet sketched out plans for a worldwide network of computers – or "electric telescopes," as he called them – that would allow people anywhere in the world to search and browse through millions of books, newspapers, photographs, films and sound recordings, all linked together in what he termed a réseau mondial: a "worldwide web." Today, Otlet and his visionary proto-Internet have been all but forgotten, thanks to a series of historical misfortunes – not least of which involved the Nazis marching into Brussels and destroying most of his life's work. In the years since Otlet's death, however, the world has witnessed the emergence of a global network that has proved him right about the possibilities, and perils, of networked information.

In 1099, when the first crusaders arrived triumphant and bloody before the walls of Jerusalem, they carved out a Christian European presence in the Islamic world that remained for centuries, bolstered by subsequent waves of new crusades and pilgrimages. But how did medieval Muslims understand these events? What does an Islamic history of the Crusades look like? When seen from the perspective of medieval Muslims, the Crusades emerge as a dramatically different story from the Christian one we know from the European chronicles.

Who are we, and how do we relate to each other? Luciano Floridi, one of the leading figures in contemporary philosophy, argues that the explosive developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) is changing the answer to these fundamental human questions.

There can be no area of human experience that has generated a wider range of powerful feelings than war. Jon Stallworthy’s classic anthology spans centuries of human experience of conflict, from David’s Lament for Saul and Jonathan and Homer’s Iliad to the finest poems of the First and Second World Wars, and beyond.

“During the centenary year an avalanche of books on the First World War’s origins will descend upon the public. Gordon Martel’s will stand out among them for its authoritative judgements and for its no-nonsense focus on the decisions that caused the conflict’s outbreak.”
– David Stevenson, author of 1914-1918: the History of the First World War

Over half a century ago, a leading commentator suggested that Scotland was very unusual in being a country which was, in some sense at least, a nation but in no sense a state. He asked whether something 'so anomalous' could continue to exist in the modern world. The Scottish Question considers how Scotland has retained its sense of self, and how the country has changed against a backdrop of fundamental changes in society, economy, and the role of the state over the course of the union.

On 4 July 2014, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, conductor Lan Shui, and pianist Andreas Haefliger present the world premiere of OUP composer Zhou Long’s Postures; a piano concerto commissioned by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and BBC Radio 3. The world premiere is planned for the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore, with the UK premiere following on 2 September at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the 2014 BBC Proms season.

OUP was again named Publisher of the Year at a Booksellers Association award ceremony on Wednesday 12 March. It was the ninth time in ten years that OUP collected the award at the Conference for Academic, Professional & Specialist Booksellers Awards Ceremony. Bookshops vote for the award, who assess publishers based on rep support, terms, head office and publishing. Chris Holmes, head of UK retail and higher education sales, said: ‘The award is a credit to the whole team who put in very hard work every year. We do take our relationships with bookshops seriously because through them is the best way to showcase our products.’

Gabriel Jackson’s large-scale Choral Symphony, commissioned and premiered by the BBC Singers has been nominated for the Choral Award, and his Cantate Domino, (commissioned by Truro Cathedral), along with Cecilia McDowall’s Advent Antiphon, O Oriens, (commissioned by Merton College, Oxford), have been shortlisted for the Liturgical Award.

Oxford University Press is launching three brand new products and re-launching 3 existing products on Oxford Law Online. For the first time; practitioners, students, academics, and librarians will be able to subscribe to unrivalled content on competition law and constitutional law. Existing products on public international law and international investment arbitration are also re-launching to ensure users have access to the best scholarly content available.

The King shall rejoice is a new anthem by Bob Chilcott for mixed choir and organ, composed for the service at Westminster Abbey on 4th June 2013 to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

Oxford University Press today announced that John Simpson, Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), will retire from his post in October 2013. John, whose pioneering leadership has seen the OED embrace the Internet, joined the OED editorial staff in 1976, and became Co-Editor with Edmund Weiner in 1985. He was appointed Chief Editor in 1993, becoming the seventh OED Editor since Sir James Murray’s appointment in 1879. Under John’s editorship, over 60,000 new words and meanings have been added to the OED.

“Gellately ... adds to his distinguished body of work on 20th-century totalitarianism with this analysis ... Interweaving scholarship and the testimonies of those who suffered under Stalin’s rule, [his] history is political and personal.” - Publishers’ Weekly

Odette Hutchinson, Aston University senior lecturer, has been named Law Teacher of the Year 2013. She was presented with the national teaching award, sponsored by Oxford University Press, at a presentation luncheon held at Worcester College, Oxford on Friday 1 March 2013.

Oxford University Press is delighted to announce that Michael Berkeley, an OUP house composer, is to become a crossbench peer in the House of Lords. A composer of a substantial number of highly acclaimed works, including three operas which have been produced in Europe, America, and Australia, Berkeley is also an articulate broadcaster and an ardent advocate for the arts and British music. As artistic director of the Cheltenham International Festival he programmed over 100 new works, and he has devoted many years to both the Royal Ballet, of which he is Chairman of the Board of Governors, and the Royal Opera House. He is also the presenter of the hugely popular BBC Radio 3 programme Private Passions.

Gabriel Jackson has won a third British Composer Award for his work for SATB choir and pianola, Airplane Cantata. Awarded by the British Association of Songwriters Composers and Authors (BASCA) the prizes are given annually for musical works premiered in the UK in the preceding year. This year’s ceremony took place in London on 3 December.

Michael Berkeley CBE has been chosen to compose the new anthem for the service of enthronement of Archbishop of Canterbury-elect, Justin Welby. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. Justin Welby’s enthronement as 105th Archbishop of Canterbury will take place on 21 March 2013 at Canterbury Cathedral, UK.

“answers the need for a history of English that is up-to-date, culturally sensitive, detailed and rigorous. Yet also, true to Emerson's philosophy, conveys some of the lustre, excitement and agony of the past." - Henry Hitchings, New Statesman

OUP released today an in-depth children's language report based on its analysis of the 74,075 story entries for the 2012 Chris Evans Show BBC Radio 2 500 Words short story competition. This language research has revealed a wealth of surprising insights into the imaginative way children use English. The six final stories will be announced at a special live broadcast of the Chris Evans Breakfast Show from the Hay Festival in Hay on Wye on Friday 1st June from 6.30am.

OUP are proud to be publishing Will Todd’s anthem The Call of Wisdom which was commissioned as part of the celebrations to mark Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee. It will be performed at the Service of Thanksgiving on 5 June 2012 at St Paul's Cathedral by choristers from the Chapel Royal, St Paul's and an expressly auditioned 'Diamond Choir' of young singers from around the UK.

Lord Hunt, Chair of the Press Complaints Commission, officially launched the latest edition of Oxford University Press's McNae’s Essential Law for Journalists at the NCTJ Media Law Seminar at The Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn in London on 30 March.

Today, 2 February 2012, OUP are publishing a book which will shed new light on Charles Dickens as historian Ruth Richardson reveals in Dickens & the Workhouse the real Bill Sikes from Charles Dickens’s novel Oliver Twist.

The MIA awards ceremony took place at the Marriott Grosvenor Square Hotel on Wednesday 30 November 2011. OUP Music is delighted to have won three awards this year, including Printed Music Publisher of the Year 2011. The award is given annually to the publisher who has achieved outstanding all-round service standards in various fields: range of publications, consistency of brand, quality of support materials, information, and promotional campaigns, as well as an innovative approach.

The first edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary was published in 1911. Edited by the brothers Henry and George Fowler from their cottage in Guernsey, and drawing on the work that had been done for the great historical account of English, the Oxford English Dictionary, the COD was not simply an abridgement: it was a completely different kind of dictionary, one that sought primarily to cover the language of its own time.

A century on, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary remains a bestseller. Look around your home or workplace and you’ll probably see a copy of the Concise. For generations the Concise has been the standard family work of reference. We are publishing the latest, 12th edition of the dictionary on August 18th, 2011, alongside a limited-edition facsimile of the 1911 edition.

A number of new Oxford University Press publications will be featured at sessions during the 2011 annual conference of the Association of British Choral Directors, including the brand-new Carols for Choirs volume.

The Oxford English Dictionary is being updated today with fascinating new content. This update includes the addition of over 1,840 newly revised and updated words.

June 2011 marks a cumulative 98,000 revised and new entries published since the OED went online in March 2000. This revision process makes the OED one of the largest and longest-running language research projects in the world. The new release looks at a range of high-profile terms from across a number of disciplines – particularly from the world of science.

The Festival aims to showcase performances of recent and contemporary liturgical music and organ music at the very highest levels, in the context of both services and concerts. This year's programme, which runs between the 7th and 15th May, will include three concerts highlighting the sacred choral works of popular Oxford composers.

The annual RPS Music Awards, presented in association with BBC Radio 3, are the highest recognition for live classical music in the UK. Awards, in thirteen categories, are decided by independent panels consisting of some of the music industry’s most distinguished practitioners. The awards honour musicians, composers, writers, broadcasters, and inspirational arts organisations. The list of previous winners reads like a Who’s Who of classical music. This year’s RPS Music Awards celebrate outstanding achievement in 2010.

First accredited textbook on intensive and acute cardiac care published

The first definitive textbook on intensive and acute cardiac care has been published by Oxford University Press, in conjunction with the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).

Accredited by the ESC, and a product of the ESC’s Acute Cardiac Care Working Group, The ESC Textbook of Intensive and Acute Cardiac Care is fully consistent with the ESC’s Core Curriculum and guidelines in the specialty.

Oxford University Press (OUP) greatly enhanced its distribution base after it completed an important warehouse move this week.
OUP made the move to its new UK distribution centre at ProLogis Park, Kettering, on-schedule and with minimum impact on customers.

In this scientific 'Credo', Peter Atkins considers the universal questions of origins, endings, birth, and death to which religions and myth-makers have claimed answers. With his usual economy, wit, and elegance, unswerving before awkward realities, Atkins presents what science has to say about questions that concern us all. While acknowledging the comfort some find in religious belief, he declares his own faith in science's capacity to reveal the deepest truths.

In this collection of interviews, of which sixteen have appeared on Salon.com, are included interviews with Christians, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims, as well as agnostics, atheists, and individuals who hold perspectives that are hard to categorize.

Cultural Strategy provides a step-by-step guide for managers and entrepreneurs to building businesses based upon innovative ideologies: ideas that leverage social change and needs. Holt and Cameron analyse a series of classic cases that relied on these bold, innovative strategies: Nike, Marlboro, Starbucks, Jack Daniels, vitaminwater, and Ben & Jerry's. They then demonstrate how the theory works as an actionable strategy model, drawing upon their consulting work. They show how cultural strategy takes start-up brands into the mass market, overcomes "better mousetraps" wars in a technology driven category, effectively challenges a seemingly insurmountable incumbent, and develops a social innovation.

“The big society ... is about liberation – the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street," the prime minister said. [guardian.co.uk Monday 19 July 2010]

The 163rd annual edition of Who’s Who brings together over 33,000 personal vignettes from those whose achievements are notable in today’s society. With over 1000 new entries, Who’s Who 2011, published on 6th December 2010, celebrates the diversity of human achievement. The uniquely autobiographical entries convey an enlightening and often amusing snapshot of the lives of those of enduring interest from all walks of life. All those listed have demonstrated lasting significance. An entry in Who’s Who is for life.

600,000 words ... 3 million quotations ... more than 1000 years of the English language New pathways through the story of English shed light on the evolution of our languageFirst ever online publication of the Historical Thesaurus of the OED, fully integrated into OED OnlineFree access through UK public libraries

“Millions of world-flatteners move every day from hotel lobby to airport limo to first-class lounge, laptop in hand, uploading, outsourcing, offshoring as they travel, adjusting the air conditioning as they go. They are changing the world, these modern nomads, and they are, in many ways, improving it – depending of course on one’s definition of progress.”

Neanderthals – no less than another kind of human – died out in their last outposts 28,000 years ago. Thanks to cartoons and folk accounts, we have a distorted view of these other humans. We think of them as crude and clumsy, driven to extinction by the lithe, smart modern humans that came out of Africa 100,000 years ago.

Is it barbaric to write a poem about the Holocaust? Is it barbaric to read one?

What is the difference between writing a novel about the Holocaust and fabricating a memoir? Do narratives about the Holocaust have a special obligation to be “truthful” –faithful to the facts of history? When is it okay to lie about the Holocaust?

Lark Rise to Candleford is Flora Thompson’s classic evocation of a vanished world of agricultural customs and rural culture. The trilogy of Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green tells the story of Flora’s childhood and youth in Candleford during the 1880s.

In 1604 King James I convened a conference to discuss the grievances of Puritan members of the Church of England. On day two, the proposal was put forward ‘that there might be a new translation of the Bible’ on the grounds that previous translations ‘were corrupt, and not answerable to the truth of the original’. The idea found favour with the King, and so began a colossal 7-year task for 50 of England’s greatest scholars. Their work – a translation authorized ‘to be read in churches’ – has had an unmatched impact of the English-speaking world ever since.

Oxford University Press (OUP) is pleased to announce that the 100th journal has now joined its Oxford Open initiative. The Journal of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Infectious Diseases, which are to be published by OUP on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America from 2011, have become the 100th and 101st journals to participate.

Dictionaries are and will remain a fundamental part of Oxford University Press's publishing. We publish over 500 dictionaries, thesauruses, and language reference titles in more than 40 languages, and in a variety of print and electronic formats so that readers can access information in the most convenient way.

In an event supported by OUP, abcd (Association of British Choral Directors) ran a workshop to introduce singers to the world of contemporary choral music, and dispel the myths that the words 'modern' or 'contemporary' are synonymous with 'hard to perform' or 'intimidating'.

Oxford University Press (OUP) announces that it has completed the acquisition of Numicon Ltd. Numicon provides a multi-sensory primary maths teaching programme that engages learners with its visual, auditory and kinaesthetic approach.